A History of Lancashire

CHAPTER XI

PROGRESS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The general appearance of the chief Lancashire towns in the early part of the eighteenth century has been graphically described by a lady who rode through England on horseback;223 and from this source we take our descriptions of Manchester, Liverpool, Lancaster, Wigan, Preston, and Rochdale.

Manchester consisted of not very lofty, but substantially built houses, mostly of brick and stone, the older houses being of wood; from the churchyard you could see the whole of the town. The market–place was large, and took up the length of two streets, when it was kept for the sale of the “linnen–cloth and cottontickens,” which were the chief manufactures of the place.

Liverpool was also mostly of brick and stone, but the houses were “high and even that a streete quite through looked very handsome”; in fact, the fair equestrienne describes it as “London in miniature,” and was much struck with its Exchange, standing on eight pillars, and over it “a very handsome Town–hall,” from the tower of which you could see the whole country round. Lancaster was “old and much decayed,” and some of the carved stones and figures belonging to the dissolved priory were still to be seen. The town was not much given to trade, though within it various trades were carried on; some of the streets were “well pitch’d and of good size.” Preston was a very good market–town, leather, corn, coals, butter, cheese, and garden produce being exposed for sale. At the entrance to the town was a lawyer’s house, all of stone, with fine windows in the front, and “high built, according to ye eastern buildings near London; on each side of it were neatly kept gardens. There were in some parts of the town some more of these handsome houses, and the streets were spacious and well pitch’d.” Wigan is described as another “pretty market town, built of stone and brick,” and as being the place where the “fine channell coales” are in perfection, and the writer adds, “Set the coales together with some fire, and it shall give a snap and burn up light.” The Wigan people at this time were in the habit of making salt–cellars, stand–dishes, and small boxes out of cannel, and these were sent to London as curiosities.

Rochdale is described as a “pretty neate towne, built all of stone.” The ride over Blackstone Edge is well described; the author mentions it as “noted all over England,” and, after referring to the ascent from the Yorkshire side, says, “Here I entred Lancashire; the mist began to lessen, and as I descended on this side ye fogg more and more went off, and a little raine fell, though at a little distance in our view the sun shone on ye vale, wch indeed is of a large extent here, and ye advantage of soe high a hill, wch is at least 2 mile up, discovers the grounds beneath as a fruitfull valley full of inclosures and cut hedges and trees. That wch adds to the formidableness of Blackstone Edge is that on ye one hand you have a vast precipice almost the whole way one ascends and descends, and in some places ye precipice is on either hand.”

Of the state of the roads in Lancashire this writer has somewhat to say; her ride from Wigan to Preston, though only twelve miles, took her four hours; and she adds, “I could have gone 20 miles in most countrys” in the same time; but she found one good thing in the county roads, which was, that at cross–roads there were posts with “hands pointing to each road, wth ye names of ye great towns on.” Daniel Defoe, passing over Blackstone Edge in 1724, complains that the road was “very frightful narrow and deep, with a hollow precipice on the right,” and that after he had gone a short distance this hollow got deeper and deeper, and, though they led the horses, they found it “very troublesome and dangerous.” Yet this was the direct and only road to Yorkshire from the Rochdale valley. The turnpike system,224 before the advent of the nineteenth century, had not been adopted in any part of Lancashire, but, with the commencement of the new industries and commercial enterprises of the period, it soon became apparent that the old “pack and prime”225 ways were no longer adequate to carry on the business which had now to be done. Some of these old roads were little better than footpaths, which the repeated tread of long strings of pack–horses had worn deep into the soil, so that in rainy weather they served at once as roads and water–courses, and these were often crossed by rivers, which at flood–times were both deep and rapid, and a constant source of danger to travellers and their goods.

In 1753 all the roads in the county were infested with highway robbers, and to guard against them travellers went in groups. Thus, every Tuesday a gang of horsemen set off from London, and arrived at Liverpool on the Monday following. Goods were carried on stage–waggons, and were usually from ten days to a fortnight in coming to Lancashire from the Metropolis.

As late as 1770 Arthur Young passed along the road for Preston and Wigan, and thus refers to it: “I know not in the whole range of language terms sufficiently expressive to describe the infernal highway. Let me most seriously caution all travellers who may accidentally propose to travel this terrible country to avoid it as they would the devil, for a thousand to one but they break their necks or their limbs by overthrows or breakings down. They will here meet with ruts which I actually measured four feet deep and floating with mud only from a wet summer! What must it, therefore, be in winter!”

The earliest Turnpike Act was passed in 1663, and referred to the great north road through the counties of Hertford, Cambridge, and Huntingdon, and near the end of the century similar Acts were adopted for other districts, but none of them applied to Lancashire. Of the main roads through Lancashire at this period we have little information, but there was one from Chester which passed through Warrington, Manchester, Rochdale, and over Blackstone Edge to York; another from Manchester to Buxton and on to London; and a third from Lancaster to Skipton in Yorkshire. There was also one from Warrington, through Wigan, Preston, and Lancaster, to Kendal. Of course there were several other cross–roads, but these were the main trunks. The great Northern centre of these roads was Chester; between there and Liverpool was all but impassable at this time with anything like a waggon.

The first Turnpike Act for Lancashire was passed in 1724, and applied to the road from Buxton to Manchester, which is described as the nearest road from London to Manchester. Other districts soon followed this example, and Acts were obtained for turnpiking the road from Liverpool to Prescot in 1725; Wigan to Warrington and Preston in 1726; Rochdale to Elland (over Blackstone Edge) in 1734;226 Preston to Lancaster, 1750; Salford to Warrington and Bolton, 1752; Rochdale to Burnley, 1754; Manchester to Rochdale, 1754; Liverpool to Preston, 1771; Clitheroe to Blackburn, 1776; Bury, and Haslingden to Blackburn, 1789; Rochdale to Edenfield, 1794; Rochdale to Bury, 1797; and other lines of route. So that before the century closed the county was intersected227 in all directions by turnpike roads, which were maintained and formed under the regulations of their several Acts, and no longer dependent upon the uncertain measure of repair formerly reluctantly furnished by the local rates, which had often to be paid by those who used the road the least. Some of the preambles to these local Turnpike Acts furnish curious particulars as to the then state of the roads. For example, in 1750 the road from Crosford Bridge (near Sale), which passed through Stretford and Hulme to Manchester, is described as being “a common High road and part of the Post road from London to Manchester; and by reason of the nature of the soil and the many and heavy carriages passing the same, the said road is become so exceedingly deep and ruinous that in the winter season and frequently in summer it is very difficult and dangerous to pass through the greatest part thereof with waggons, carts, and other wheel carriages; and travellers cannot pass without danger and loss of time. And whereas some part of the said road lying next to Crosford Bridge is many times overflowed with water and impassable; whereby the Post is delayed, and severall persons in attempting to pass through the same have lost their lives.”

Towards the end of the century many parts of the old roads were abandoned, and shorter routes adopted, thus materially contributing to that ready access between town and town and the county with the Metropolis which was now becoming an absolute necessity. In places where the Turnpike Act had not been adopted it was now often found necessary to enforce the law as to repairs by indicting the parish at quarter sessions, where the justices ordered a fixed sum to be paid, which had to be levied by rates. The vast improvements made in the highways led to a very rapid development of the stage–coaches and stage–waggons.

An adventurous Manchester man advertised in 1754 that his flying coach, “however incredible it may appear, will actually (barring accidents) arrive in London in four days and a half after leaving Manchester.”

In 1756 the “Flying Stage” coach left Warrington on Mondays, and got to London on Wednesdays, the inside fare being two guineas, with an allowance of fourteen pounds of luggage.

It was not until 1760 that a stage–coach began to run between Liverpool and London direct.

Between Manchester and Liverpool a stage–coach was established in 1770, which ran twice a week.

But along with the improvement of roads other schemes were being developed which ultimately led to the formation of the navigable canals which now intersect the county. The first of these is the one known as the Bridgewater Canal, which was commenced in 1758, when the Duke of Bridgewater obtained power to construct a water way from Worsley to Salford and to Hollinfare (or Hollin Ferry), on the river Irwell, and also to carry his canal across that river through Stretford into the town of Manchester. This work, which was then considered a masterpiece of engineering, was carried out under the direction of James Brindley. In addition to the aqueduct over the river, which is upwards of 200 yards long, there were other difficulties to be overcome, amongst them a tunnel of three–quarters of a mile in length. The bridge over the Irwell consists of three arches, the centre one 63 feet wide and 38 feet high, thus admitting barges to go through with masts standing, and, as Baines put it (writing in 1836), affording the spectator the “extraordinary sight, never before witnessed in this country, of one vessel sailing over the top of another.” In 1761 a much bolder scheme was commenced by the Duke, which, when completed, formed a canal nearly 30 miles long, from Stretford to Runcorn on the Mersey. This took five years to construct, and it had the effect of at once lessening the cost of carriage by water between Manchester and Liverpool by at least fifty per cent. But this first Lancashire canal was not used only for the conveyance of goods; boats on the model of the Dutch trekschuyt were used daily to take passengers from Manchester to the places on the line of route. A branch from Worsley to Leigh was cut in 1795. Before the establishment of canals powers had been obtained in 1720 to render navigable the Irwell and Mersey from Liverpool to Manchester, and in 1726 the river Douglas (alias Asland), from Wigan to the Mersey. These river improvements were made at great cost, and at the best were not found to work in a very satisfactory manner, and were soon superseded by the ordinary canals. One of the first Lancashire canals was the Leeds and Liverpool, which was begun in 1770, when it was considered one of the boldest schemes which had ever been undertaken in England. Its length from Leeds to Liverpool is 107 miles. Dr. Aiken, writing near the close of the century, says of this canal: “On a cursory survey, the tract of country through which it passes will probably appear not extremely inviting to such an undertaking. It is but lightly peopled, and though the great towns at the opposite extremities abound in objects of commercial importance, yet their connection with each other is not very intimate, nor does it seem likely to be much promoted by such a circuitous communication. Coal and limestone are the chief natural products of the intermediate country; and as the districts abounding in the one often want the other, a considerable transport of these articles on the canal may be expected, as well as other useful kinds of stone found in quarries near its course.”

After the American War, which ended in 1783, Manchester showed great activity in pushing forward various schemes for the extension of the water–communication with the surrounding districts. Amongst the canals made before the end of the century were those to Bolton and Bury, Ashton–under–Lyne and Oldham; Manchester to Rochdale and Yorkshire; Kendal to Lancaster, Garstang, Preston, and West Houghton. On the latter packet boats conveying passengers to Preston went daily for many years.

The only place in the county where the maritime trade was increasing was Liverpool, where in the last decade of the century some 4,500 vessels arrived annually, their tonnage being about one–fifth that of the ships which reached London each year. The chief trade was with Africa and the West Indies, at least one–fourth of the Liverpool vessels being employed in the slave trade. From Lancaster, before the stagnation of trade set in, about forty–seven vessels were trading with foreign ports, their chief cargoes being mahogany furniture and goods made in Manchester and Glasgow. The Ribble was not much used by boats of any considerable burden.

To the cotton trade and all its developments must we look for the vast increase in the commercial prosperity of Lancashire which so strongly marked the last fifty years of the eighteenth century. The first invention which led to the present mode of spinning wool was the patent taken out in 1738 by Lewis Paul,228 of Birmingham, for spinning of wool or cotton by machinery. The preamble to this grant sets forth that the machine was “capable of being set so as instantaneously to spin wool, cotton waste and wick–yarn to any degree, size, or twist with the greatest exactness, and is to be worked without handling or fingering the matter to be wrought, after the same be once placed in the machine, and requires so little skill that anyone, after a few minutes’ teaching, will be capable of spinning therewith; and even children of five or six years of age may spin with the same, by which means the poorest of the clothiers will be enabled to supply their customers without suffering under the encumbrance of a dead stock of yarn, and the weavers may be supplied with such yarn as they shall want for their several occasions without that loss of time which often happens to them.”

The principle of this and a later patent taken out by Paul covered the invention of what is technically known as roller–spinning, but which required further improvement before it could be profitably used. John Kay, a native of Walmersly, near Bury, where he was born July 16, 1704, was the undoubted inventor of the fly–shuttle which was patented in 1733, and of several other important machines connected with the trade. His melancholy history cannot here be repeated, but his life was one long struggle against ignorance and ingratitude. The people who were most to be benefited by his invention broke up his machines and drove him homeless to France. His appeal to Government was in vain, and even those who adopted the fly–shuttle refused to pay for its use. He died an exile from his country in obscurity and poverty.

Let us take a glance at the daily work carried on by the cottagers and small farmers in Lancashire at the time when Kay made known his great invention. Samuel Bamford, of Middleton, who was well able to give testimony on this subject, writes: “The farming was generally of that kind which was soonest and most easily performed, and it was done by the husband and other males of the family, whilst the wife and daughters and maid–servants, if there were any of the latter, attended to the churning, cheese–making, and household work; and when that was finished, they busied themselves in carding, slubbing and spinning wool or cotton, as well as forming it into warps for the looms. The husband and sons would next, at times when farm labour did not call them abroad, size the warp, dry it, and beam it in the loom, and either they or the females, whichever happened to be least employed, would weave the warp down. A farmer would generally have three or four looms in his house, and then – what with the farming, easily and leisurely though it was performed, what with the house–work, and what with the carding, spinning and weaving – there was ample employment for the family. If the rent was raised from the farm, so much the better; if not, the deficiency was made up from the manufacturing profits.” William Radcliffe, himself an improver of the power loom, gives another account of the life of the hand loom weaver. In 1770, he says, “the land [in Mellor, near Manchester] was occupied by between fifty and sixty farmers … and out of these there were only six or seven who raised their rents directly from the produce of the farms; all the rest got their rents partly in some branch of trade, such as spinning and weaving woollen, linen or cotton. The cottagers were employed entirely in this manner, except for a few weeks in harvest. Being one of those cottagers, and intimately acquainted with all the rest, as well as every farmer, I am better able to relate particularly how the change from the old system of hand labour to the new one of machinery operated in raising the price of land. Cottage rents at that time, with convenient loom–shop and a small garden attached, were from one and a half to two guineas per annum. The father would earn from 8s. to half a guinea, and his sons, if he had one, two, or three alongside of him, 6s. or 8s. a week; but the great sheet–anchor of all cottagers and small farms was the labour attached to the hand–wheel; and when it is considered that it required six or eight hands to prepare and spin yarn, of any of the three materials I have mentioned, sufficient for the consumption of one weaver, this shows clearly the inexhaustible source there was for labour for every person, from the age of seven to eighty years (who retained their sight and could move their hands), to earn their bread, say from 1s. to 3s. per week, without going to the parish.”

A weaver at this date had frequently to walk many miles to collect from various spinners the quantity of weft required to keep his hand–loom going, but the invention of the fly–shuttle made matters no better for him, as, although he could now turn out with the same labour as heretofore double the amount of pieces, he found no material increase in the product of the spinning–wheel. Here, then, was a block, to get over which there was only one way, and that was a corresponding increase in the production of the weft.